CONSIDERATION
OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 19 OF THE CONVENTION

Conclusions and recommendations of the Committee against Torture

Uzbekistan

1. The Committee considered the second periodic report of Uzbekistan
(CAT/C/53/Add.1) at its 506th, 509th and 518th meetings, held on
1, 2 and 8 May 2002 (CAT/C/SR.506, 509 and 518), and adopted the
following conclusions and recommendations.
A. Introduction

2. The Committee welcomes the second report of Uzbekistan, which
was submitted on time and in accordance with the Committee's previous
request. It appreciates the substantial information on the many
reforms aimed at bringing domestic legislation into harmony with
the State party's obligations under the Convention. While noting
that there was little information in the report on the implementation
of the Convention in practice, the Committee wishes to express its
appreciation for the informative oral update given by the representatives
of the State party during the consideration of the report, and the
State party's willingness to provide further information and relevant
statistics in writing.

(a) The ratification of several significant human rights treaties
and the enactment of many laws aimed at bringing the legislation
into conformity with the obligations in those treaties;

(b) Educational initiatives taken by the State party to familiarize
various sectors with international human rights standards, and the
extensive efforts made to cooperate with international organizations
to promote understanding of human rights, including by inviting
technical cooperation from the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights;

(c) The State party's reports of its efforts to draw up a new definition
of torture that is consistent with the definition in article 1 of
the Convention, and the introduction of a draft law in the parliament
to allow citizen's complaints in matters of torture;

(d) Assurances from the representative of the State party that the
State is determined to establish an independent judiciary;

(e) The report by the representative of the State party of the establishment
of an appeals system for court sentences and the introduction of
alternatives to prison sentences, releasing detainees on bail;

(f) The information conveyed by the State party's representative
that responses were being developed to the findings of an official
study into complaints filed with the Ombudsman's Office that had
revealed a number of questionable judicial convictions, incidents
of torture or ill-treatment by law enforcement officials, and inadequate
supervision of the application of human rights norms by law enforcement
agencies;

(g) The prosecution and sentencing in January 2002 of four police
officials to prison terms for torture, and the statement by the
State party's representative that this was a turning point signalling
the State party's commitment to enforce the prohibition against
torture in practice.

C. Factors and difficulties impeding the application of the Convention
4. The Committee is aware of the difficulty of overcoming the inheritance
of a totalitarian system in the transition towards a democratic
form of governance, and that this is compounded by instability in
the region. Nonetheless, the Committee stresses that such circumstances
cannot be invoked as a justification of torture.

D. Subjects of concern
5. The Committee expresses concern about the following:
(a) The particularly numerous, ongoing and consistent allegations
of particularly brutal acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment committed by law enforcement
personnel;
(b) The lack of adequate access for persons deprived of liberty,
immediately after they are apprehended, to independent counsel,
a doctor or medical examiner and family members, an important safeguard
against torture;
(c) The insufficient level of independence and effectiveness of
the procuracy, in particular as the Procurator has the competence
to exercise oversight on the appropriateness of the duration of
pre-trial detention, which can be extended up to 12 months;
(d) A lack of practical training for (i) doctors in the detection
of signs of torture or ill-treatment of persons who have been or
are in custody, and (ii) law enforcement personnel and judges in
initiating prompt and impartial investigations;
(e) The insufficient independence of the judiciary;
(f) The de facto refusal of judges to take account of evidence of
torture and ill-treatment provided by the accused, so that there
are neither investigations nor prosecutions;
(g) The fact that the definition of torture in the Criminal Code
of the State party is incomplete and, therefore, not in full conformity
with article 1 of the Convention;
(h) The numerous cases of convictions based on confessions, and
the continued use of the criterion of "solved crimes" as the basis
for promotion of law enforcement personnel, which, taken together,
create conditions that promote the use of torture and ill-treatment
to force detainees to "confess";
(i) The absence of transparency in the criminal justice system and
the lack of publicly available statistics on detainees, complaints
about torture, and the number and results of investigations into
such complaints; moreover, the State party has not provided the
information requested in connection with the initial report reviewed
in November 1999 regarding the number of persons detained and the
number executed after being sentenced to death;
(j) The extradition or expulsion of individuals, including those
seeking asylum in Uzbekistan, to countries where they may be exposed
to the risk of torture.

E. Recommendations
6. The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a) Proceed promptly with plans to review the proposals to amend
its domestic penal law to include the crime of torture fully consistent
with the definition contained in article 1 of the Convention and
supported by an adequate penalty;
(b) Take urgent and effective steps: (i) to establish a fully independent
complaints mechanism, outside the procuracy, for persons who are
held in official custody; and (ii) to ensure prompt, impartial and
full investigations into the many allegations of torture reported
to the authorities, and the prosecution and punishment, as appropriate,
of perpetrators;
(c) Ensure that those who complain of torture and their witnesses
are protected from retaliation;
(d) Ensure in practice absolute respect for the principle of the
inadmissibility of evidence obtained by torture;
(e) Take measures to establish and ensure the independence of the
judiciary in the performance of their duties in conformity with
international standards, notably the Basic Principles on the Independence
of the Judiciary;
(f) Adopt measures to permit detainees access to a lawyer, a doctor
and family members from the time they are taken into custody and
ensure that doctors will be provided at the request of detained
persons without the need to obtain the permission of prison officials;
and maintain a register with the names of all detainees, the times
at which such notifications of lawyers, doctors and family members
have taken place and the results of medical examinations; this register
should be accessible to the lawyers and others as appropriate;
(g) Improve conditions in prisons and pre-trial detention centres,
and establish a system allowing for unannounced inspections of those
places by credible impartial investigators, whose findings should
be made public. The State party should also take steps to shorten
the current pre-trial detention period and provide independent judicial
oversight of the period and conditions of pre-trial detention. Furthermore,
the order for an arrest should be made only by a court;
(h) Ensure that law enforcement, judicial, medical and other personnel
who are involved in custody, interrogation, treatment or who otherwise
come into contact with detainees are trained with regard to the
prohibition of torture and that the requalification procedure ("re-attestation")
of those personnel include both verification of an awareness of
the Convention's requirements and a review of their records in treating
detainees;
(i) Consider further steps to transfer the prison system from the
Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice, thereby
advancing the conditions of the penitentiary system in accordance
with the Convention;
(j) Review cases of convictions based solely on confessions in the
period since Uzbekistan became a party to the Convention, recognizing
that many of these may have been based upon evidence obtained through
torture or ill-treatment, and, as appropriate, provide prompt and
impartial investigations and take appropriate remedial measures;
(k) Ensure in the legislation and in practice that no one will be
expelled, returned or extradited to a State where there are substantial
grounds for believing that he/she would be in danger of being subjected
to torture;
(l) Consider making the declarations under articles 21 and 22 of
the Convention;
(m) Provide data in the next periodic report, disaggregated, inter
alia, by age, gender, ethnicity and geography, on civil and military
places of detention as well as on juvenile detention centres and
other institutions where individuals may be vulnerable to torture
or ill-treatment under the Convention; provide information in the
next periodic report regarding the number, types and results of
cases, both disciplinary and criminal, of police and other law enforcement
personnel accused of torture and related offences;
(n) Widely disseminate the Committee's conclusions and recommendations
and the summary records of the review of the State party's reports,
including to law enforcement officials, in the public media and
through popularization efforts by non-governmental organizations;
(o) Consider consulting directly with independent non-governmental
human rights organizations in the preparation of the next periodic
report.